GRAFFITI is not art, it is vandalism and it is open flouting of the rule of law.
It is sometimes said that those who spray graffiti are “are above the law” and that graffiti is “soft terrorism”.
Public places have been vandalised and terrorised by graffiti vandals. Graffiti is a whole bunch of meaningless scrawls, saying nothing except that they have scored one over the other contenders for space.
The places they reach out into are ridiculous, and are scrawled at great risk to their lives. Graffitti lines the walls alongside the railway corridors of all Metro rail routes and are an eyesore.
The cost to local government goes into the hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars. A gross waste of tax, and ratepayers’ money. This vandalism and “soft terrorism” must stop. It does not reflect well, and is a deterrent to tourism; we come across as a chaotic society which tolerates mayhem.
I urge the federal, state, and local governments to jointly start a program of elimination of graffiti, by placing the onus to clean up on the owners of property alongside the railway corridors, or wherever graffitti occurs.
If it is private property, then the property owner has responsibility to clean up, and if it is public property, then it is the responsibility of the relevant government authority to clean up. We owe it to ourselves, to create an environment that is graffiti-free, and not let these vandals and terrorists dominate our law-abiding social framework.
Milroy Martyn,
Endeavour Hills.
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